Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000449
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP money back. Such wild behaviour may be well enough for a kindergarten recreation-hour, but is hardly within the legitimate scope of an invalid industry where constant care and night nurses are urgently essential. To quote again, a house divided against itself and the European house makes war each storey with the next. On October 22 at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, Ray Rockett, Production Manager of First National Films, illuminated the cinema world with two or three profound remarks. He said he had come to Germany to study intensively German production methods. He said if asked had America anything to learn from Germany regarding method he would answer yes. Germany could make films so much more cheaply ! Be warned. Cheaper American films. See them spilling over the world like the Mississippi flood. And Europe hasn't got an ark. He set too an example (and this bears vividly on my point) of contrast between German and American methods. Quoting Alexander Corda, who is now directing in America, he said he had never known a director who worked so quickly and cheaply. The secret was that when he arrived in Hollywood he thought he must follow out the same methods as in Europe ; that he must keep within a financial limit, and not only direct, hiit cut too. "With us," said Mr. Ray Rockett, "the director does nothing but direct." The cutting and editing have no more to do with him than has the financial side. As a matter of fact most European directors going to x\mer 15